


Something Wrong and Something Right

by FalconHonour



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Colic, Forced infantilism, Fussy Baby, Gen, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:43:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconHonour/pseuds/FalconHonour
Summary: When Olivia Jones from the Society phones Derek saying they've found Kate, he thinks he's found the perfect way to revenge himself on her. But is it really going to be that easy? Or will he have to admit that their being apart is better for everyone concerned? Shortish one-shot.





	Something Wrong and Something Right

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Derek's Baby Boy--Kate AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712561) by [GentlyWithAChainsaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GentlyWithAChainsaw/pseuds/GentlyWithAChainsaw). 



> Because this story hasn’t left me alone since I first read GentlyWithAChainsaw’s infantilism Kate AU, here it is. I’ve taken much of the first two scenes verbatim from her story to set the scene with one major difference, Derek hasn’t adopted Stiles yet. Kate comes into his life first. 
> 
> Fair warning, infantilism isn’t my usual fare, so I apologise for any mistakes. Nor is this fandom mine. All I know about these characters comes from infantilism stories involving Derek and Stiles, so any inaccuracies are mine. Please forgive them. With that caveat, enjoy, and please do comment!

“Derek? This is Olivia Jones with the Society.”

Derek frowns. He hasn’t spoken to Olivia since he finished the vetting process for prospective parents. She’d promised to get in touch if she had a little one she thought might suit him, but that was months ago. He won’t admit it, even to himself, but he’d almost given up hope of her ever contacting him.

 “Hi, Olivia. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I know this is a bit unusual, but…” Olivia takes a deep breath on the other end of the line. “We found her, Derek. Kate Argent. She was living with other hunters. We attacked and killed most of them, but she survived with a few others.”

Derek freezes. He’d been telling himself for years that Kate was dead. It was the only way he knew to get through the days. “You— you’re sure it’s her?”

“Yes. We thought about simply putting down the survivors we have in custody, but I thought you might like to make the decision here. We can put her down now, wait for you and your uncle to get here so you can watch, or…work out some other arrangement.”

“You mean…keep her?”

“I suppose you wouldn’t want to give her too much agency, but there are plenty of ways you could keep her as a pet. Or a baby, I know you’ve thinking of adopting a little one of your own. It’s completely your decision. Whatever would help give you closure.”

Derek closes his eyes. He’d been so happy thinking Kate was gone forever. A part of him just wants to tell Olivia to put a bullet in her head so he can stop thinking about her.

But then he sees her in his mind’s eye. Those wild eyes, glowing with triumph in the light of his burning house. Her laugh dancing on the wind. He doesn’t just want that laugh silenced— he wants it replaced.

Replaced with a high, insistent cry for Daddy, a soft coo, the sweet babbles he remembers from when he’d spent time with little ones during his training. He thinks of Kate dressed in nothing but a diaper with her hands in mittens. She would hate it. She would hate it so, so much. She would hate it for years. But eventually she would give in— forget who she used to be. His mouth is dry at the thought of it.

“I think we can work something out,” he says hoarsely.

* * *

Derek’s heart skips several beats in joy as he bends over Kate. She looks so perfect, lying there in the bassinet, her hands in pink mittens and her body encased in a white fluffy onesie that makes her look like a sheep. In all his wildest dreams, he never thought he’d have her here, like this, completely at his mercy.

“You thought you’d won the day you set that fire, didn’t you, Kate?” he whispers, careful to keep his voice soft enough that anyone watching them would just assume he was cooing over his new baby. They wouldn’t hear the words he hisses, “Well you haven’t. You haven’t. Because I’m your daddy now. I’m your daddy and you’re my little girl. You’re my family, my new family. In a few years— or decades—torturing you might start to get boring. But I’ll never be bored with knowing you’re giving me everything you once fought so hard to take away from me.”

With a tiny smirk on his face he leans into the crib and kisses her forehead. “This is the last grown-up conversation we’ll ever have,” he tells her. “The last grown-up conversation you’ll have with  _anyone._  Because Kate—  _I win.”_

* * *

Kate watches Derek leave the room through half-closed eyes, her heart rate spiking with anger. So, he thinks he’s won, does he? He thinks that just because she’s pinioned in a crib, in a body that will no longer do as she wants it to, that she’s just going to roll over and let him do whatever he wants to her, is that it?

She can’t help but snarl under her breath at that thought, though she is careful to keep it soft enough that even the baby monitor, blinking away merrily in the corner of the room, won’t pick it up.

She rolls over – the shots have left her that much autonomy, at least – and forces her eyes shut, determined to fall asleep if it’s the last thing she does. At least in her dreams, Derek can’t control her.

Just as she drifts off, however, her mother’s voice resounds in her ears.

_“I always knew you’d be a tough girl, Kate. I remember when you were a baby, you had such bad gas and were so fussy. Nothing was ever right for you, not unless you were feeding or in a bath. If you weren’t doing either of those things, you screamed. Screamed loud enough to wake the dead. I was at my wits’ end. I almost rang the health visitor and asked her if she could take you back to the hospital, just so I could get some decent sleep.”_

Despite herself, Kate’s lips quirk up into what could almost be called a smile. Derek wants her to act like a baby, does he? Well, let’s see what he makes of her when she’s not the cooing, gurgling new-born he’s envisaged, squealing and holding out her arms for her daddy, but rather a noisy, writhing monster who can’t be soothed for neither love nor money.

Suddenly gleeful, she rolls over again and lets herself drift off, properly this time. If she’s going to keep Derek on his toes, then she’s going to need all the energy she can muster.

* * *

Kate screams. She screams and screams until her throat is sore, before pausing to drag in a gulp of air and then screaming some more. Her face is screwed up and red and veins stand out on her forehead as she writhes, drenched in sweat.

“Hush, Kate, hush,” Derek paces the nursery, rocking her in his arms, “Please, hush. Daddy’s here, Daddy’s here.”

He hates how desperate he sounds. He hates how much her screaming has broken him. But it’s been a week now, and Kate just hasn’t stopped crying. She hasn’t stopped crying and he hasn’t slept. He’s been too desperate to soothe his fussy little princess.

Oh, not out of any real care for her, of course. But he knows what game she’s playing. She wants to trick him into giving up on her, and he won’t do that.  He’s her Daddy now, and daddies don’t give up on their little girls.

He thought at first, when she woke up that second morning at home and started screaming as though her life depended upon it, that if he treated her like he’d treated all the other fussy littles at the training centre. rocked her and walked her and hushed her, she’d tire of the game eventually. But she hasn’t.

Dr Deaton had told him it was just gas, or perhaps colic, that if he didn’t want to spend every waking minute rocking her fruitlessly, he’d have to learn to let her cry it out. But his super sensitive hearing makes that impossible. Her piercing wails drill into his skull too much. And however tempting the thought of torturing her by not playing along is, his mental and physical health depends on his at least attempting to quieten her down.

Hence, he is stuck. He is stuck fussing over Kate, pandering to her in a way he’d sworn he’d never do again, in the hope that, eventually, she’ll take pity on them both and sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.

He takes her little slippered foot in his hand, cupping her heel. He attempts to cycle her legs, to ease her apparent gas pain. but she kicks out, pulling her legs up away from him with surprising strength as she arches her back, howling.

“I’m trying to help you, damn you!” he swears, frustration getting the better of him. As well it might. It is almost three in the morning and they’ve been playing this game since he tried to settle her down for the night at seven-thirty.

Kate hears the frustration in Derek’s voice leaking out from behind his ‘kind daddy’ façade and smiles inwardly. This is a new development. She’s getting to him. Good.

She doesn’t let it stop her, of course. The other thing her mother had told her about when she was a baby was how much she’d hated having a wet diaper. The incontinence shots might stop her being able to control her bladder, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have some influence over how often she goes. The more she drinks, the more she has to go.

With that in mind, she’s been gulping more and more milk recently, shrieking to be fed nearly every hour. And Derek, desperate to earn himself at least a respite from her crying, has been playing right into her hands. He’s been feeding her whenever she howls long enough, if only to keep her quiet for a few moments.

As if on cue, she feels her bladder begin to ache in its usual tell-tale manner. Seconds later, it spills out into her diaper, soaking the cloth until it is heavy and hanging uselessly against Derek’s hands.

She pauses for a moment and then wails again, a high rattling cry this time. She shifts in Derek’s hold and thrashes even more wildly.

This time, she is sure she sees his eyes flash golden with anger, before he reins himself in and coos to her, “Oh no! Did my poor fussy little Princess wet herself? Shall Daddy see whether a nice change might settle you down enough to let us both sleep, hmm?”

He carries her over to the changing table and she continues shrieking, but this time with inward glee. He’s not holding her as carefully as usual. She’s definitely rattled him tonight. Definitely.

* * *

“I feel for Derek, I really do,” Kira murmurs to Peter, as she watches their alpha shift slowly from foot to foot in a cautious attempt not to wake the baby dozing in his arms. Kate might be sleeping at the moment, but the dark circles under Derek’s eyes and the way he has to deliberate his every movement so carefully tell their own story. This is clearly a rare occurrence, “I’ve never known a little cry as much as Kate. Even at her newest and fussiest, Alison was never this bad.”

“Oh, don’t pity him,” Peter snaps, “He’s brought this on himself. I told him trying to adopt her was a bad idea. But no, he had to prove me wrong. He had to prove he could turn her from a hunter into someone who could never threaten us again. And yet he won’t treat her the way she needs to be treated. She needs to be broken, not coaxed. He’s always been far too soft on her. And she knows it. She’s playing him, the vixen. He needs to toughen up and put his foot down. But he won’t. God knows why, but he won’t. Not when it comes to Kate Argent.”

“But,” Kira bites the inside of her cheek, leaning down to ruffle Alison’s curls as she toddles over and then shooing her off again to play with Scott, well out of earshot, before she continues, “If he’s already this exhausted, then what are we going to do when the moon comes? We need him at his peak for that, to keep us all under control, not run ragged by the demands of a demonic little.”

Peter shrugs, “Maybe. But my nephew’s issues aren’t mine. He’s made that clear enough, time and time again. Don’t look to me to fix this, Kira.”,

“But…” Kira trails off, cocking her head to one side, “You say yourself you think Derek’s too soft on Kate. You must have ideas, ideas on how you would raise her, if she was yours.”

That gives Peter pause. He turns to look Kira straight in the eye. “What if I did?” he says at last, “What are you thinking?”

Kira glances at Derek, but his full attention is now on Kate, who has flickered awake and is beginning to fuss, the kind of fussing that generally preludes her ramping up into a full-on screaming fit.

She looks back at Peter, “Not here. Come over later. We need to talk this through, if it’s going to work.”

* * *

“No! Absolutely not!” Derek snarls, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He can feel his claws itching beneath his skin, begging to be unleashed on Kira, to mar her pretty face forever, “Kate is _mine!_ ”

He layers his voice with the alpha threat, expecting Kira to cow under immediately. To his surprise, she doesn’t. She must really think this is the best for the pack as a whole. It’s the only way she could resist him.

“I’m not denying she’s yours, Derek. But she’s not making you happy, or helping you do the best you can for the pack. You need a different little. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Erica had to give up on Donovan, remember? Scott spoke to Olivia yesterday. She’s got a whole new class of littles just begging to be adopted. We’re going, to see if we can find a little sister for Alison. Why don’t you come with us? There’s no harm in looking, is there?”

Derek turns away. He doesn’t want to hear another word, doesn’t want to admit that he might have made a mistake, taking Kate on so soon. But he has to admit, if only to himself that he’d thought he’d have made more progress with her by now, if only to stop that infernal crying. After all, it’s been nearly two months since he brought her home. And aging her up is out of the question, of course. She’d take every inch of extra liberty he gave her and run a mile with it.

Unbeknown to him, because he’s not looking for it, Kira shoots Scott a look of triumph behind his back. They’ve won. She knows the moment Derek stopped arguing that they’ve won.

* * *

The littles gurgle as Derek strolls the nursery, stalking between the cribs with an easy grace that belies what he is effortlessly. Their big eyes gleam and sparkle as he leans in to talk to first one, then another.

But it is the little boy, somewhat older than the others, who really catches his eye. He looks up at Derek steadily, as if he is considering something quietly, then suddenly holds out his arms in an unmistakeable, if unspoken, command.

Despite himself, Derek chuckles and lifts him out of the crib.

“You want to say hello, do you, little man?” he asks, unnecessarily.

“Eh-o! Eh-o!” the boy chirps, bouncing lightly in his arms before snuggling, completely unprompted, into the hollow at the base of Derek’s throat.

Derek’s heart leaps and melts. This is what he’s always imagined having a little would be like, that instinctive trust and bond that forms instantly between a little and their caretaker. It takes all he has not to overwhelm the boy with his response.

He carries the little one to the window, cooing under his breath as he does so. Standing in the doorway, the nurse smiles to herself. She knows how this is going to end. She’s seen it too many times not to.

“I see you’ve met Stiles,” she laughs, “Shall I take you into a private room so you can get to know each other a bit better?”

* * *

Kate is wailing when they get back, a high insistent wail that drills into Derek’s head. Peter barely waits for them to get through the door before thrusting her into his arms.

“Here, nephew. I babysat your little monster, the way you wanted. Now take her back.” he sneers, venom lacing his voice.

Derek curves his arms around Kate automatically, but, now that he has experienced the rush of something right in meeting Stiles, he realises just how wrong it feels to be holding Kate. How stiff they still are around each other. How she almost seems to be curling away from him in disgust before emitting yet another ear-piercing, blood-curdling shriek.

In the future, he will look back on that moment and realise that day was the one he finally managed to throw off the spell Kate Argent had held over him for almost as long as he could remember. But not that day. He doesn’t realise it then. He just knows that, however much he tries to be a good daddy to her, to help her adjust to her new role as his baby girl, something is missing. Something just feels _wrong._

* * *

In the end, it is easy. Peter would never admit it, but he has been itching to adopt Kate and raise her on his own terms – far harsher terms than Derek’s – since the day Derek first brought her home and introduced her to the Pack. He takes very little persuasion to adopt her as Donovan’s baby sister.

Derek explains everything to Olivia, and she is understanding. She’s seen too many placements fail not to take this one in her stride. And after all, she only offered Kate to Derek in an attempt to give him some closure after the fire. She never actually thought they were well-suited.

That in mind, she is more than happy to sign off on Derek’s adoption of Stiles, even though, as a failed carer, he should be subject to a much more stringent background check the second time around.

Within weeks, Kate is sleeping in a new bedroom across town and Derek is carrying Stiles over the threshold of his new home, the baby gurgling and clapping excitedly at the sight of all these new and shiny things.

“Do you like them, hmm? Do you think you’ll be happy here, Stiles? Will you be a good boy for Daddy, hmm? Will you be much, much nicer than that naughty girl Kate ever was?”

Stiles’s only answer is a giggle and more uncoordinated clapping, but the light in his eyes is answer enough. Derek’s heart melts. This is what adoption should feel like. Oh, it won’t be a walk in the park, he knows that. _Kate_ made sure he knows that. But this time, something feels different about bringing his little one home. Something feels right.

_Stiles_ feels right. _Stiles_ feels right in a way that Kate never did.

Unable to help himself, Derek catches the little one up in a hug and tosses him in the air, delighting in the way he squeals.

“Oh, little Prince,” he whispers, “We’re going to be so happy together. So, so happy.”

 


End file.
